Longtime Santa Barbara defense lawyer Steve Balash said he could only shake his head while watching Jackson’s exclusive interview on “60 Minutes” on Sunday night.

“His protests of innocence might have helped him – but he also said he was injured and locked in a bathroom. Those are factual allegations that could be proven or disproved,” said Balash. “He was emphatic that he was locked in a bathroom for 45 minutes. They [prosecutors] will hold his feet to the fire on those allegations.”

L.A. defense lawyer Dana Cole said Jackson and his lawyer, Mark Geragos, should not have made the police-brutality claims because, if proven untrue, he’ll look like a liar.

“Credibility is the key to his defense, and his whole defense could be sunk if it turns out that the Santa Barbara sheriff can show this [brutality allegation] to be completely untrue,” Cole said.

In the Sunday night chat, Jackson said he’d slit his wrists before committing a sex crime on a minor. Cole said he found that response troubling. “I think Michael Jackson thinks it’s compelling that he’d rather kill himself [than have sex with a minor], but it’s just another bizarre comment,” said Cole, adding that Jackson showed he would be an awful witness.

“Did you see when Ed Bradley turned up the heat just a little bit, he either said he was ill or his handlers would rush in and they’d take a break? Well that ain’t going to happen at a trial. When you’re testifying at trial there are no handlers.”

But even if Jackson didn’t win over many fans on Sunday, Fox News Channel legal editor Stan Goldman said he doesn’t need everyone to like him.

“He might have come off as a nut or someone who is peculiar – but maybe he came off as such a nut that someone can believe that he can share a bed with boys and there’s nothing to it,” said Goldman, a law professor at Loyola Marymount University.

The interview notched big rating numbers.

It averaged 18.2 million viewers from 7:30 to 8:30 p.m., according to overnight Nielsen numbers.